Looking for solutions to our ordering processes

[DanielU]

Hi All,

Looking for advice on IT infrastructure, I will list what I think I am looking for, and the current issues I am facing within the business.

We supply safety equipment & workwear B2B and also direct to end user via our website - this can also be personalised (heat press/embroidery).

Currently we have multiple different systems which in my opinion cause the issues listed below:

Before listing we have our ecommerce website, a separate accounts system, and a separate inventory management system (all separate independent systems).

• All orders, whether a customer places it themselves online, or whether our internal team receive them via email/phone - they are all funneled through the website. There is no differentiating system between a web customer & non web customer. This makes things like analytics etc difficult as we don't accurately know where traffic has come from. (The internal team log in as the "customer" to process the order, through the back end of Zencart).
• We have to load our full product range to our website, although we might not want to make certain products readily available to the general public.
• Invoices consistently fail to download correctly, and calculations are wrong.
• We have to manually send invoices to our customers daily (also statements monthly).
• Credits/Refunds are a long drawn out process having to be entered on different systems & a note manually typed up/sent to the customer.
• No real reporting structure - we have virtually no data to advance with.
• Not able to have the website operating on a LIVE stock basis.
• No CRM, so correspondence between colleagues about customer accounts gets lost.
• Have to manually look up customer records to check when invoices are overdue (very long winded, isn't even a quick glance - it physically needs worked out) - and we handle over 1000 invoices per month.
• Accounts reporting is a nightmare.

I am looking to find out how I best handle some of the issues listed below. Systems such as Sage appear to be able to handle the accounts/inventory management. But want to know how people tend to differentiate online orders & then orders received internally for our customer service team to process. I would envisage a back end system separate from the website which is in sync with our website & able to process orders offline.

I hope this makes sense, it is a very complicated business at present.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Nico Albrecht]

zoho one that covers your accounts, stock, crm, tickets and much more and allows for api calls so your web developer can write a module to send data back in to the zoho one apps to sync them. The customer portal is quite handy as clients can access all historic data such as quote, invoices etc... online without you sending it out.

 

[WebshopMechanic]

You should speak with @Chris Elwood at Comtecs about this one. This is right up their alley and they are one of the best systems integration / building companies I've worked with (10 years+).

 

[Solly]

We use Despatch Cloud for this, we feed in 4 websites, Amazon, EBay and Fruugo, keeps stock synced across all of them and integrates with Xero so pushes all the transactions to the accounts system which saves days of work.

 

[Chris Elwood]

Hi, Sorry for the delayed response! @WebshopMechanic has reminded me now!

We have worked with clients who have deployed Sage 200 to solve this issue. You can then centralise all your stock and order management within Sage. This then outputs a range of products you determine to your web platform.

We have implemented this with Magento in a couple of places and it will almost certainly meet your requirements. The only real drawback is the initial setup cost as there will be elements of Sage & reporting that will doubtless need to be built in as extras to the standard package.

We have worked with a Sage 200 partner for a while now and they have been able to overcome even the most complex business practices. All orders from either the webshop or telephone would enter into Sage and this would become the central store of all stock & inventory. There are also elements of CRM that can be added to Sage depending on how much complexity you need.

All sync should be available in real-time (give or take) to the website so that if someone sells a product over the phone they increment down in Sage and therefore on the web. You can schedule these syncs to happen pretty frequently.

All invoicing and reporting will be done with Sage and webshop orders will display as such so you can see the split easily.

I am happy to have a chat with you in more detail about the options at any point. I can also give you some ballpark costs from where we have delivered solutions in the past if that is useful? Let me know if you have any additional questions.

Chris.

 

[Will H]

Hi Daniel

I've built systems for embroidery/workwear businesses with integration to e-commerce and Xero,
I've been involved with some large scale workwear/manufacturing businesses so may be able to help you with internal processes too.

If you're interested in chatting further please feel free to PM.

Will

 

[Anthony Kay]

Hi Daniel,
Try taking a look at Odoo (formerly OpenERP). They offer a fully integrated ERP/CRM/HR/E-Commerce platform designed to run your entire business with a focus on SMEs.

There is a community edition which is free to download, although you need to install, self host, configure and secure etc. They also offer their Enterprise edition which is available as a SaaS or hosted offering on a monthly subscription.

You can get a long way on the community edition and the right selection of apps from the app store, before making the step up. As its modular, you can also start small and scale into it reducing the risk as you get more comfortable.

Very reasonably priced compared to it's competitors. Full pricing and free trial editions are available on their website.

Feel free to DM me if you would like to know more about the various editions, how best to approach an implementation, or how to get started on the community edition.

Thanks
Ant

 

[Pish_Pash]

Ok, so I keep banging on, but what the OP needs is his own internal database.....like many (& like I used to) he's using a whole load of 'off the shelf' disparate systems....and failing to get them to do what he needs.

With your own internal database you can literally do whatever you want/need. need a specific invoice?...no problem (30 minutes work) ...need to go and fetch your orders automatically? No problem, need analytics (website vs phone/direct) no problem. Need inventory control? Not a problem, need to forecast stock requirements (ordering from your supplier), no problem...and on it goes.

I know of no end to end system for a modest/small SME that will provide everything a particular company needs .... if you go the off the shelf route, you'll be wrestling with several different companies pleading with them to release a feature that *you* need...you'll always be fighting to get these system to talk to one another, they will release buggy software, your processes then break...you will tear your hair out as they drag their heels debugging & issuing a fix ...it's just FUBAR. The bigs lads have access to things like SAP & Microsoft Dynamics ...but even these needs a whole team of experts & support to get them to sing & dance in the way that your particular company needs.

Having your own database essentially centralises everything into one bespoke system ...no kludging together many different systems

• All orders, wheter a customer places it themselves online, or whether our internal team receive them via email/phone - they are all funneled through the website. There is no differentiating system between a web customer & non web customer. This makes things like analytics etc difficult as we don't accurately know where traffic has come from. (The internal team log in as the "customer" to process the order, through the back end of Zencart).

With your own internal database, your internal team would enter orders directly into your database... for Zencart orders, your database goes and 'fetches' your orders automatically from it - each way will have a differenitiating (unique) field so you can run analytics.

• We have to load our full product range to our website, although we might not want to make certain products readily available to the general public.

This is going to be down to your cart software, but you can have your internal database automatically disable those prodiucts you don't want the general public to view/buy.

• Invoices consistently fail to download correctly, and calculations are wrong.

With your own database ...you're in control of this - if you go 'off the shelf', good luck identifying where the probem lay ...and then with getting support!

• We have to manually send invoices to our customers daily (also statements monthly).

Your own database should be configured email invoices to customers automatically (all my customers get emailed at the end of the day with their invoice after I've dispatched)

• Credits/Refunds are a long drawn out process having to be entered on different systems & a note manually typed up/sent to the customer.

See above.

• No real reporting structure - we have virtually no data to advance with.

database queries - very, very easy!

• Not able to have the website operating on a LIVE stock basis.

Your database will have inventory real time levels & update ALL sales channels accordingly.

• No CRM, so correspondence between colleagues about customer accounts gets lost.

Erhm...a database! (again)

• Have to manually look up customer records to check when invoices are overdue (very long winded, isn't even a quick glance - it physically needs worked out) - and we handle over 1000 invoices per month.

A simple database query will flag up overdue invoices - literally takes a second to flag up all those overdue accounts, generates a reminder email direct to the customer, thena while later a threatening email - no user intervention needed. This can also be done via accounts software (but then you're in the hands of the software house who provide it...it may not have the automation you need/seek)

• Accounts reporting is a nightmare.

That's normally down to your chosen accounts software (which ironically is just a database with a pretty front end on it)

So you might be thinking...ok a database is what I need...where do I start? Well you start with the area that's causing you the most pain...deploy a database to address that ...and then afterwards, you start getting that same database to embrace/attack all those other aspects that are causing you pain.